The Purple Reaction is a music blog that focuses on music in our culture and explores the history, theory and artistry that make the music we love so great. This is a celebration of art, the emotional connections that we feel through music and the deep personal meaning we experience through great music.
This blog features new posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Buffy's On A Plane!!

The prospect of putting a dog a plane is an scary one. There are many stories online of dogs getting sick, traumatized and even dying on plane flights. So, when we decided to fly to Seattle from Chicago with Buffy, it was an intimidating idea.

K, IM ALL PACKD AN READY 2 GO!!!!

When you take dogs on planes there are two choices: checking the dog right under the cockpit in a temperature controlled but checked luggage situation or taking the dog on board as a carry-on bag and stick the dog under the seat in front of you Almost all of the really scary “dog dying on the plane stories” are a result of checking the dog under the cockpit, so we felt a little better knowing that Buffy would be on board with us.

OMG!!! SECURITY IZ REDIKULUS!!!! GRRR. . .

The weight limit for dogs on plane is usually about 20 pounds but the thing is about Buffy is that even though she is only 12 pounds she is a tall dog for her weight. It was tough to find a carrier tall enough for her to sit, stand, and lie down comfortably. What we found to help accommodate this is the Sturdibag brand dog carriers.

We got the large size and it was the perfect size for Buffy. Flexible rods in the bag could easily be bent so the bag could be put into a smaller space—in this case, the low height of the seat in front. The bag has great ventilation, easy–to-carry shoulder straps, and a really cute hole on the top that Buffy could stick her head out of to see what was going on. Also, Buffy amazingly figured out how to climb out of the bag out of that hole, to our surprise.

I'S ON PLANE!!!!

The thing is that even after doing research, finding the dog areas at each airport, getting Buffy on a schedule that lined up with the plane flights, and thoroughly tiring Buffy out with play dates, I was still nervous about taking Buffy on a plane.

We’ve been through a lot with Buffy and she’s proved herself a resilient, strong and a really “good dog” but it still really worried me what would happen on the plane. I mean what if she needed to go to the bathroom or just started to whine for no reason? What would we do?

SIGH . . . K IM STILL ON PLANE . . .

The thing is that you can’t make decision in life according to worst-case scenarios. Am I never going to drive my car because sometimes people die? No, of course not.

WE LANDD!!! AN I SNUCK OUT OV TEH BAG!!!! HEEHEE

So we took a chance got Buffy to the airport, through security, and on the plane. After a temporary escape from the bag, Buffy sat in her bag for three hours and forty minute and didn’t make a sound. She reminded us that she’s a sturdy and even-tempered little trooper.

GIT ME OFF DA PLANE!!!

Yes, it cost an extra $100 to take Buffy onto the plane and the stress of the whole process was indeed palpable but it was definitely worth it to travel as a whole family and watch my mom run around the house in delight playing with my little angel.

2 comments:

We would have waved at you guys from the pier on Sat if we knew you all were there too. We had some time to kill after the ship got back and hit the Aquarium there for a bit before hitting Sea-tac again for the flight home yesterday. What airline did you fly? It's kind of funny you write this as I noticed Southwest showing they do the same carry-on puppy service for 75 bucks and I didnt even know they did it at all on any airlines.